Xbox Live, the real-time gaming service from Microsoft, has a history of stupid policies dealing with gay play. In what was supposedly an attempt to crack down on homophobia from other players the system, even gay users weren’t allowed to declare their orientation, as more than one CGI ass kicker learned. So strict was the policy, even subscriber Richard Gaywood was forced to change his actual name in order to use Xbox Live. That’s all about to change, starting today.

With 23 million members, and at least a couple million of those being family, Xbox Live’s new policy is sure to affect a whole slew of gamers. Says the company in a release:

With that in mind, I’d like to announce an update to the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use and Code of Conduct which will allow our members to more freely express their race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation in Gamertags and profiles. Under our previous policy, some of these expressions of self-identification were not allowed in Gamertags or profiles to prevent the use of these terms as insults or slurs. However we have since heard feedback from our customers that while the spirit of this approach was genuine, it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox LIVE community. This update also comes hand-in-hand with increased stringency and enforcement to prevent the misuse of these terms.

So return to your original handle, theGayerGamer. As for xxxGayBoyxxx, who caught some Halo homophobia? The triple-X rating might still be too much for Microsoft.

Whenever anyone on Xbox Live calls me a fag (and that word is thrown around quite a bit,) I just say, “Yeah, I am. So?” And more hilariously, very few people know how to respond to that. It’s like once they realize they’re actually offending someone, most people shut up.

Mar 5, 2010 at 12:02 pm · @Reply ·

TommyOC

@ryankiefer: Exactly! I do the same thing. Get called a “fag” and a “cocksucker” and I reply in the affirmative. It’s a game in itself to frustrate them to no end as they try to insult me… only to find their tired bag of insults have no effect. Good times, that. :-)

ok i have to say this because i am a transgendered woman and i must! transgendered does NOT have ANYTHING TO DOW WITH sexual orientation. i am a pre-operavtive transsexual woman and when i am a post operative transsexual woman it still will have NOTHING to do with my sexual orientation. i am a lesbian now and will be a lesbian then. being transsexual doesn’t make me any more or less gay. being transsexual is about the parts i have not the what i am sexually attracted to. do i think it’s about time that people have the ability to share with others who and what they are absolutely but that’s because as educated people we should be accepting of ALL people PERIOD! i thinkit’s great that people will be able to have that kind of information on their profile. if more people knew how many of us transgender and alternate sexual preference types were gaming with them they might just get some education and be more accepting of people. but since it is about educating them shouldn’t that education be about both Gender identity AND sexual orientation. because they are NOT the same thing. AT ALL.

Mar 22, 2010 at 5:54 pm · @Reply ·

omar

Wow, are you serious? The “No sexual content” policy also included showing off your sexuality? I had no idea. Only recetly I came out and even more recently I started putting LGBT in my clan tags on CoD 4, WaW, and MW2. Good thing I did these things AFTER the policy was changed =]

Apr 5, 2010 at 1:56 am · @Reply ·

Luke

I think it’s completely ignorant to do this. First I’d like to say I have nothing against homosexuals. They should ban ANY type of exposure of their sexuality no matter the orientation. I think if they did this, banning gay and straight orientation related things on xbox live as far as profiles, it would be better for everyone. I’ve heard of so many cases of people changing their gamertag to ‘Gays Suck’ among other hateful things since this update. Lets just put it this way, no one needs to know your sexual orientation to play an xbox 360 game with you. It’s one of those don’t ask don’t tell things, or in this case, you can tell if they ask, but if not then no one needs to know.